Ever wanted to look super smart? How about cool? Or ever had a conversation
go flat? Learn some of the fun and interesting facts to spruce up a conversation or just to learn more. When dealing with
science fact is always cooler than fiction!

Fun Facts

-The pregnant female cochineal bug is used as a red dye for fabrics. Sound
normal? Well the extracts from the bug is also used to colour strawberry ice cream.

-Mikey, the Life cereal boy, was rumoured to be killed by consuming a *deadly*
combination of Pepsi and pop rock candy. It was rumoured that the combination of the two mixed in his stomach and the poor
little boy exploded! Not true. The most it would have done was given him gas. The mixture would have produced carbon dioxide
(used to make soft drinks fizzy) and expelled either through his mouth or rear-end. Unless he has deadly gas Mikey is just
fine.

-Sugar, against popular belief, is in fact not a stimulant. It will NOT make
you hyper.

-At least once when you were younger you sat down with your parents or one
of your teachers and asked them that fateful question: Why is the sky blue? Well im sure you hear many answers to that question:
It reflects off the water, God likes the colour blue, Ask someone else Oh the endless answers. The truth is the sky is blue
because the atmosphere absorbs the sun light. Ever put a prism in front of a window and seen those colours? Well when the
sun light hit the atmosphere the blue light is reflected more readily then the other colours. Also the sun positioning of
the sun is an important factor. Those beautiful colours we all enjoy so much is just sun light hitting the atmosphere at a
different angle.

-Ever wonder why there is a wake at a funeral? Well back in the old days people
used to eat out of pans that were an alloy of copper, nickel, lead and many other metals. What would happen was that when
the pots were heated up the lead would leech into the food. The unsuspecting people would consume the lead tainted food and
pass out. Many people were declared dead and the poor people would wake up days later in a dark confined box. Not cool. So
the wake was invented so that before people were placed in coffins a ritual of letting them sit out for three days out on
table to see if they would wake up. Youd be surprised to see how many people walked off those tables!

-Chalk makes a very good ant-acid. Just thought id tell you all if you have
Ms. McRae. J

-Why does garlic turn blue sometimes cook it? By any chance were you using
lemon juice? Garlic will turn blue when you add an acid to it because it contains anthocyanin which is an acid/base indicator
(See pH page). Anthocyanin is water soluble, and when in contact with an acid will turn either purple or blue.

-Ok so this isnt too scientific but I found this out in a partially scientific
way. Did you know that some brands of Ice cream actually make their chocolate ice cream from the un-used ice cream. Why can
they do this? Why can you just check the ice creams ingredience? Well most ice creams are made of the same thing, so whether
you have one ice cream or two you wont have much different in the ingredience.

-Losing weight. How many times have you seen those info-mercials selling the
newest lose-weight-fast method. You might not know this but they dont work!!! Think about it for a minute, how many different
diets and pills have you heard of? Ten twenty hundreds? Think for a second if one those worked why would we need so many?
The truth is, the only way to lose weight affectively is to eat in moderation and healthier and to exercise.

For more fun, interesting facts and stories related to chemistry and the everyday
life check out these books: